Saturday, 13 October 2018

The fuel supply situation is expected to improve
significantly as Government has instituted a raft of measures to ease the
plight of consumers.

Energy and Power Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo
yesterday said the National Oil Infrastructure Company (NOIC) was continuously
pumping fuel into the country 24 hours a day to ensure availability.

Distribution was also being done round the clock. “The
Environmental Management Agency (EMA) waived the restriction on night
deliveries up to January 31, 2019 and the ethanol mandate was reduced to E10
and current supplies are meeting market demand,” said Dr Gumbo.

He said statistics on daily fuel uplifts from NOIC depots
showed that the market should be reasonably supplied with fuel, which is,
however, not the case.

In this regard, Dr Gumbo said the Zimbabwe Energy
Regulatory Authority (ZERA), with the assistance of the police, was clamping
down on hoarding and dealers who were breaking the law.

“There are reports from the public that some service
stations are pretending to have stocked-out, with the intention of reserving
fuel for parallel market purposes, while others have taken to overpricing
and/or demanding payment in United States dollars only,” he said.

“Zimbabwe Energy and Regulatory Authority, with the
assistance of the Zimbabwe Republic Police are monitoring the situation and
will descend heavily on any offenders.

“It was agreed that should any company or its dealers be
found to be on the wrong side of the law, then its license will be can-celled.”

Dr Gumbo was speaking soon after a meeting with the oil
industry during which he said they had managed to clear a lot of grey areas.

These, he said, were the rise in international fuel prices
which were not matched by foreign currency allocations and the release of funds
for fuel in the form of Letters of Credit which took longer than expected to
operationalise, leading to stock outs, panic buying and hoarding. Herald